I’m getting tired of having to make this correction. Early on in this article Jenny McCartney refers to ‘ambulance drivers’ – as in “essential workers on relatively low salaries ” such as nurses, firefighters, hospital porters and ambulance drivers”. There is no such job as ‘ambulance driver’ – it disappeared with the 20th century. Paramedics today are skilled clinicians, most have degrees and many have post graduate degrees. My son, a Paramedic with the London Air Ambulance is part of a rapid response trauma team that can carry out, and regularly does, heart surgery on the roadside following major accidents, shooting or stabbing incidents. I would agree that his pay is not commensurate – but please ditch this redundant term ‘ambulance drivers’.
Adamsson
3 years ago
Don’t be daft. It will dog eat dog and biggest nastiest dog will win.
Dougie Undersub
3 years ago
There is much to agree with in this article but also some inconsistencies. The only way to bring house prices down is to build more houses. Mayor Khan has completely failed to meet his promises in this regard, just like all his other broken promises. If, as Jenny suggests, house prices force key workers to move out of London and work elsewhere, guess what? Key worker wages in London will increase. I should also point out that many key workers are not on low salaries at all. Nurses, firefighters, paramedics (pace Ian’s comment below), police officers all are well paid and don’t get me started on Tube drivers! Of course, hospital porters, healthcare assistants, supermarket workers are less well-paid but paying them more will just, indirectly but inexorably, make low paid non-key workers worse off. I can see why the immigration health surcharge might make some people angry but the logic is perfectly sound. It makes no more sense to excuse NHS workers from paying it than it does to suggest that a Polish bricklayer should be able to live rent-free in a house he helped build. And besides, it’s not as if the BMA’s “international colleagues” can’t afford £625. UK hospital doctors are amongst the best paid in Europe – by a large margin in many cases. That’s why they choose to come here and not, say, Portugal, doh! Finally, the evidence of the last election is that it’s the Left that has failed over many years to recognise the needs and value of the “working man”. Those on the Right are generally full of respect for the tradesmen and women they engage. Even the toffs, who are comfortable with the notion of “staff” in a way the nouveau riche Islington socialists just are not. You just have to note James O’Brien’s furious anger at the plumber who dared contradict him last week to see the paradoxical disdain of a paid-up Lefty for the workers. To return to the theme of Jenny’s article, I think attitudes will change but not necessarily as much as people think or might hope.
Paul T
3 years ago
I agree that workers like carers do a great job in difficult circumstances and are paid too little for it. However, I am getting sick of the term hero being applied to people for doing the jobs they are paid to do, sick of rainbow (well of course) signs appearing in fields where I live telling me to support the ‘heroes’ of the NHS. I feel personally like setting fire to them (the signs). Just listening to a programme about the battle of Arnhem, where British soldiers in WW2 fixed bayonets and charged a German line to clear the area. That was heroism and people should learn the difference.
parishbooks49
3 years ago
The issues Jenny identifies apply equally in “desirable” rural areas such as Cornwall. Here one third of children are in poverty with parents in insecure jobs and living in insecure housing. We do need much greater social housing provision and reform of the employment laws to secure employment rights for those left in bogus and insecure “self-employment”.
We should abandon too the dogma of the last few decades of “private good public bad” and return to social provision of social goods.
David Waring
3 years ago
Covid is now yet another excuse to shovel yet more illegal immigrants into our overcrowded island to the detriment of the existing residents of these islands for the benefit of the Liberal Left already very rich media Political London upper class.
I’m getting tired of having to make this correction. Early on in this article Jenny McCartney refers to ‘ambulance drivers’ – as in “essential workers on relatively low salaries ” such as nurses, firefighters, hospital porters and ambulance drivers”. There is no such job as ‘ambulance driver’ – it disappeared with the 20th century. Paramedics today are skilled clinicians, most have degrees and many have post graduate degrees. My son, a Paramedic with the London Air Ambulance is part of a rapid response trauma team that can carry out, and regularly does, heart surgery on the roadside following major accidents, shooting or stabbing incidents. I would agree that his pay is not commensurate – but please ditch this redundant term ‘ambulance drivers’.
Don’t be daft. It will dog eat dog and biggest nastiest dog will win.
There is much to agree with in this article but also some inconsistencies. The only way to bring house prices down is to build more houses. Mayor Khan has completely failed to meet his promises in this regard, just like all his other broken promises. If, as Jenny suggests, house prices force key workers to move out of London and work elsewhere, guess what? Key worker wages in London will increase.
I should also point out that many key workers are not on low salaries at all. Nurses, firefighters, paramedics (pace Ian’s comment below), police officers all are well paid and don’t get me started on Tube drivers! Of course, hospital porters, healthcare assistants, supermarket workers are less well-paid but paying them more will just, indirectly but inexorably, make low paid non-key workers worse off.
I can see why the immigration health surcharge might make some people angry but the logic is perfectly sound. It makes no more sense to excuse NHS workers from paying it than it does to suggest that a Polish bricklayer should be able to live rent-free in a house he helped build. And besides, it’s not as if the BMA’s “international colleagues” can’t afford £625. UK hospital doctors are amongst the best paid in Europe – by a large margin in many cases. That’s why they choose to come here and not, say, Portugal, doh!
Finally, the evidence of the last election is that it’s the Left that has failed over many years to recognise the needs and value of the “working man”. Those on the Right are generally full of respect for the tradesmen and women they engage. Even the toffs, who are comfortable with the notion of “staff” in a way the nouveau riche Islington socialists just are not. You just have to note James O’Brien’s furious anger at the plumber who dared contradict him last week to see the paradoxical disdain of a paid-up Lefty for the workers.
To return to the theme of Jenny’s article, I think attitudes will change but not necessarily as much as people think or might hope.
I agree that workers like carers do a great job in difficult circumstances and are paid too little for it. However, I am getting sick of the term hero being applied to people for doing the jobs they are paid to do, sick of rainbow (well of course) signs appearing in fields where I live telling me to support the ‘heroes’ of the NHS. I feel personally like setting fire to them (the signs).
Just listening to a programme about the battle of Arnhem, where British soldiers in WW2 fixed bayonets and charged a German line to clear the area. That was heroism and people should learn the difference.
The issues Jenny identifies apply equally in “desirable” rural areas such as Cornwall. Here one third of children are in poverty with parents in insecure jobs and living in insecure housing. We do need much greater social housing provision and reform of the employment laws to secure employment rights for those left in bogus and insecure “self-employment”.
We should abandon too the dogma of the last few decades of “private good public bad” and return to social provision of social goods.
Covid is now yet another excuse to shovel yet more illegal immigrants into our overcrowded island to the detriment of the existing residents of these islands for the benefit of the Liberal Left already very rich media Political London upper class.